Video games have come a long way and are less stigmatized as shallow diversions for children and unwashed male nerds. Everyone seems to be picking them up. But what games are out there for the construction professional who doesn't feel compelled to shoot snarling aliens in the face or advance their half-elf wizard to level 60? Luckily, there are a more than a few small but cleverly-designed construction-based games online.

In Chronic Logic's deceptively simple game Bridge Construction Set (free demo to download, $20 for full registered version), the player is given a straightforward task: using the limited materials provided (steel, iron, cable, etc.) to build a bridge over a river. Professional engineers used to working with advanced modeling software and the latest CAD-based simulations might scoff at the game's basic approach to design, but don't be deceived by it's simplicity. Beneath the game's minimal but intuitive interface is a surprisingly responsive physics engine, and getting even a simple truss bridge to stay up may require more fine-tuning than first imagined.

Finding a design that meets the requirements is only part of this game's appeal. The real fun is found in pushing the limits of the game's engine. Try building bridges using as little material as possible, or experiment with unusual designs no engineer would seriously model in professional software. I'm very proud of a bouncy but stable bridge I came up with, supported only by two small iron towers at the ends and miles of cabling anchored everywhere on the span I could click.

Perhaps engineering design isn't your thing and you want to play an accurate simulation of the construction process. One of the most authentic construction management experiences out there comes in a very odd package. Dwarf Fortress (free to download) from Bay 12 Games may turn off the construction-minded player because of it's fantasy setting, but the developers really should have called this game Construction Project Management From Hell.

In Dwarf Fortress, you start out with a little band of dwarves next to a mountainside and you have to excavate and build a fully functional city inside that mountain. Easy, no?

What begins as the simple task of digging out a few tunnels quickly turns into a full-blown construction progam. You will soon be overseeing building of hallways, rooms, stables, armories and even a system of floodgates to control the underground river that will someday irrigate your subterranean farms.

Just don't ask what happens if you accidentally dig into the underground river without first preparing for the resulting flood. Let's just say it causes what the construction industry refers to as "unexpected cost overruns." Also, drowned dwarves.

Like any real construction site, there are issues with materials and labor in Dwarf Fortress. Will there be enough granite mined out in time to build statues for the cavernous dining hall? Or, why are all my dwarves unwilling to finish their assigned tasks, and are instead getting drunk on wine and wandering off the job only to get mauled by wild elephants?

Many video games have sought to simulate the real-life construction process, with varying levels of success. However, trying to get this crew of hardworking but incredibly surly guys to build a whole city inside a hill captures for me the atmosphere of an actual job site. The best part of the game is that there are no real preset templates for the construction and the underground city can take any shape you imagine. The only limitations are the literally hundreds of things that can go horribly wrong (again, much like real construction project management).

A quick warning before playing Dwarf Fortress. The game is very complex and deep in its design, but it has no graphics whatsoever. Instead, it relies on so-called ASCII graphics, where everything on the map is represented by colored letters, numbers, punctuation marks and all the other symbols a PC is capable of showing. It can be a bit confusing at first, but with a reference list at hand it quickly become second nature, and the game compensates for the lack of eye candy with rather colorful descriptions of the action.

Now, I realize that many of you reading this column are supposed to be working right now anyway, and the last thing you need is another distraction. But sometimes a short mental diversion is necessary to keep sane, and if those games that came bundled with Windows aren't cutting it anymore, try a different kind of video game that rewards the player for thinking creatively about construction.